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Expositor's Bible Commentary Isaiah 63:1 Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Isaiah 63:7 I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the LORD, and the praises of the LORD, according to all that the LORD hath bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which he hath bestowed on them according to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his lovingkindnesses. CHAPTER XXV A LAST INTERCESSION AND THE JUDGMENT Isaiah 63:7 through Isaiah 66:1-24 WE might well have thought, that with the section we have been considering the prophecy of Israel’s Redemption had reached its summit and its end. The glory of Zion in sight, the full programme of prophecy owned, the arrival of the Divine Saviour hailed in the urgency of His feeling for His people, in the sufficiency of His might to save them, -what more, we ask, can the prophecy have to give us? Why does it not end upon these high notes? The answer is, the salvation is indeed consummate, but the people are not ready for it. On an earlier occasion, let us remember, when our prophet called the nation to their Service of God, he called at first the whole nation, but had then immediately to make a distinction. Seen in the light of their destiny, the mass of Israel proved to be unworthy; tried by its strain, part immediately fell away. But what happened upon that call to Service happens again upon this disclosure of Salvation. The prophet realises that it is only a part of Israel who are worthy of it. He feels again the weight, which has been the hindrance of his hope all through, -the weight of the mass of the nation, sunk in idolatry and wickedness, incapable of appreciating the promises. He will make one more effort to save them-to save them all. He does this in an intercessory prayer, Isaiah 63:7 through Isaiah 64:1-12 , in which he states the most hopeless aspects of his people’s case, identifies himself with their sin, and yet pleads by the ancient power of God that we all may be saved. He gets his answer in chapter 65, in which God sharply divides Israel into two classes, the faithful and the idolaters, and affirms that, while the nation shall be saved for the sake of the faithful remnant, Jehovah’s faithful servants and the unfaithful can never share the same experience or the same fate. And then the book closes with a discourse in chapter 66, in which this division between the two classes in Israel is pursued to a last terrible emphasis and contrast upon the narrow stage of Jerusalem itself. We are left, not with the realisation of the prophet’s prayer for the salvation of all the nations, but with a last judgment separating its godly and ungodly portions. Thus there are three connected divisions in Isaiah 63:7 through Isaiah 66:1-24 . First, the prophet’s Intercessory Prayer, Isaiah 63:7 through Isaiah 64:1-12 ; second, the Answer of Jehovah, chapter 65; and third, the Final Discourse and Judgment, chapter 66. I. THE PRAYER FOR THE WHOLE PEOPLE ( Isaiah 63:7 through Isaiah 64:1-12 ) There is a good deal of discussion as to both the date and the authorship of this piece, was to whether it comes from the early or the late Exile, and as to whether it comes from our prophet or from another. It must have been written after the destruction and before the rebuilding of the Temple; this is put past all doubt by these verses: "Thy holy people possessed it but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down Thy sanctuary." "Thy holy cities are become a wilderness, Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. The house of our holiness and of our ornament, wherein our fathers praised Thee, is become for a burning of fire, and all our delights are for ruin." This language has been held to imply that the disaster to Jerusalem was recent, as if the city’s conflagration still flared on the national imagination, which in later years of the Exile was impressed rather by the long cold ruins of the Holy Place, the haunt of wild beasts. But not only is this point inconclusive, but the impression that it leaves is entirely dispelled by other verses, which speak of the Divine anger as having been of long continuance, and as if it had only hardened the people in sin; compare Isaiah 63:17 ; Isaiah 64:6-7 . There is nothing in the prayer to show that the author lived in exile, and accordingly the proposal has been made to date the piece from among the first attempts at rebuilding after the Return. To the present expositor this seems to be certainly wrong. The man who wrote Isaiah 63:11-15 had surely the Return still before him; he would not have written in the way he has done of the Exodus from Egypt unless he had been feeling the need of another exhibition of Divine Power of the same kind. The prayer, therefore, must come from pretty much the same date as the rest of our prophecy, -after the Exile had long continued, but while the Return had not yet taken place. Nor is there any reason against attributing it to the same writer. It is true the style differs from the rest of his work, but this may be accounted for, as in the case of chapter 53, by the change of subject. Most critics, who hold that we still follow the same author, take for granted that some time has elapsed since the prophet’s triumphant strains in chapter 60-62. This is probable; but there is nothing to make it certain. What is certain is the change of mood and conscience. The prophet, who in chapter 60 had been caught away into the glorious future of the people, is here as utterly absorbed in their barren and doubtful present. Although the salvation is certain, as he has seen it, the people are not ready. The fact he has already felt so keenly about them, -see Isaiah 42:24-25 , -that their long discipline in exile has done the mass of them no good, but evil, comes forcibly back upon him. { Isaiah 64:5 b ff.} "Thou wast angry, and we sinned" only the more: "in such a state we have been long, and shall we be saved!" The banished people are thoroughly unclean and rotten, fading as a leaf, the sport of the wind. But the prophet identifies himself with them. He speaks of their sin as ours, of their misery as ours. He takes of them the very saddest view possible, he feels them all as sheer dead weight: "there is none that calleth on Thy name, that stirreth himself up to take hold on Thee: for Thou hast hid Thy face from us, and delivered us into the power of our iniquities." But the prophet thus loads himself with the people in order to secure, if he can. their redemption as a whole. Twice he says in the name of them all, "Doubtless Thou art our Father." His great heart will not have one of them left out; "we all," he says, "are the work of Thy hand, we are all Thy people." But this intention of the prayer will amply account for any change of style we may perceive in the language. No one will deny that it is quite possible for the same man now to fling himself forward into the glorious vision of his people’s future salvation, and again to identify himself with the most hopeless aspects of their present distress and sin; and no one will deny that the same man will certainly write in two different styles with regard to each of these different feelings. Besides which, we have seen in the passage the recurrence of some of our prophecy’s most characteristic thoughts. We feel, therefore, no reason for counting the passage to be by another hand than that which has mainly written "Second Isaiah." It may be at once admitted that he has incorporated in it earlier phrases, reminiscences, and echoes of language about the fall of Jerusalem in use when the Lamentations were written. But this was a natural thing for him to do in a prayer in which he represented the whole people and took upon himself the full burden of their woes. If such be the intention of Isaiah 63:7 through Isaiah 64:1-12 , then in them we have one of the noblest passages of our prophet’s great work. How like he is to the Servant he pictured for us! How his great heart fulfils the loftiest ideal of Service: not only to be the prophet and the judge of his people, but to make himself one with them in all their sin and sorrow, to carry them all in his heart. Truly, as his last words said of the Servant, he himself "bears the sin of many, and interposes for the transgressors." Before we see the answer he gets, let us make clear some obscure things and appreciate some beautiful ones in his prayer. It opens with a recital of Jehovah’s ancient lovingkindness and mercies to Israel. This is what perhaps gives it connection with the previous section. In chapter 62 the prophet, though sure of the coming glory, wrote before it had come, and "urged" upon "the Lord’s remembrancers to keep no silence, and give Him no silence till He establish and till He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth." This work of remembrancing, the prophet himself takes up in Isaiah 63:7 : "The lovingkindnesses of Jehovah I will record," literally, "cause to be remembered, the praises of Jehovah, according to all that Jehovah hath bestowed upon us." And then he beautifully puts all the beginnings of God’s dealings with His people in His trusting of them: "For He said, Surely they are My people, children that will not deal falsely; so He became their Saviour. In all their affliction He was afflicted, the Angel of His Face saved them." This must be understood, not as an angel of the Presence, who went out from the Presence to save the people, but, as it is in other Scriptures, God’s own Presence, God Himself; and so interpreted, the phrase falls into line with the rest of the verse, which is one of the most vivid expressions that the Bible contains of the personality of God. "In His love and in His pity He redeemed them, and bare them, and carried them all the days of old." Then he tells us how they disappointed and betrayed this trust, ever since the Exodus, the days of old. "But they rebelled and grieved the Spirit of His holiness: therefore He was turned to be their enemy, He Himself fought against them." This refers to their history down to, and especially during, the Exile: compare Isaiah 42:24-25 . Then in their affliction they "remembered the days of old"-the English version obscures the sequence here by translating he remembered- and then follows the glorious account of the Exodus. In Isaiah 63:13 the wilderness is, of course, prairie, flat pasture-land; they were led as smoothly as "a horse in a meadow, that they stumbled not. As cattle that come down into the valley"-cattle coming down from the hillside to pasture and rest on the green, watered plains-"the Spirit of Jehovah caused them to rest: so didst Thou lead Thy people to make Thyself a glorious name." And then having offered such precedents, the prophet’s prayer breaks forth to a God, whom His people fed no longer at their head, but far withdrawn into heaven: "Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of Thy holiness and Thy glory: where is Thy zeal and Thy mighty deeds? the surge of Thy bowels and Thy compassions are restrained towards me." Then he pleads God’s fatherhood to the nation, and the rest of the prayer alternates between the hopeless misery and undeserving sin of the people, and, notwithstanding, the power of God to save as He did in times of old; the willingness of God to meet with those who wait for Him and remember Him; and, once more, His fatherhood, and His power over them, as the power of the potter over the clay. Two points stand out from the rest. The Divine Trust, from which all God’s dealing with His people is said to have started, and the Divine Fatherhood, which the prophet pleads. "He said, Surely they are My people, children that will not deal falsely: so He was their Saviour." The "surely" is not the fiat of sovereignty or foreknowledge: it is the hope and confidence of love. It did not prevail; it was disappointed. This is, of course, a profound acknowledgment of man’s free will. It is implied that men’s conduct must remain an uncertain thing, and that in calling men God cannot adventure upon greater certainty than is implied in the trust of affection. If one asks, What, then, about God’s foreknowledge, who alone knoweth the end of a thing from the beginning, and His sovereign grace, who chooseth whom He will? are you not logically bound to these?-then it can only be asked in return, Is it not better to be without logic for a little, if at the expense of it we obtain so true, so deep a glimpse into God’s heart as this simple verse affords us? Which is better for us to know-that God is Wisdom which knows all, or Love that dares and ventures all? Surely, that God is Love which dares and ventures all with the worst, with the most hopeless of us. This is what makes this single verse of Scripture more powerful to move the heart than all creeds and catechisms. For where these speak of sovereign will, and often mock our affections with the bare and heavy (if legitimate) sceptre they sway, this calls forth our love, honour, and obedience by the heart it betrays in God. Of what unsuspicious trust, of what chivalrous adventure of love, of what fatherly confidence, does it speak! What a religion is this of ours in the power of which a man may every morning rise and feel himself thrilled by the thought that God trusts him enough to work with His will for the day; in the power of which a man may look round and see the sordid, hopeless human life about him glorified by the truth that for the salvation of such God did adventure Himself in a love that laid itself down in death. The attraction and power of such a religion can never die. Requiring no painful thought to argue it into reality, it leaps to light before the natural affection of man’s heart; it takes his instincts immediately captive; it gives him a conscience, an honour, and an obligation. No wonder that our prophet, having such a belief, should once more identify himself with the people, and adventure himself with the weight of their sin before God. The other point of the prayer is the Fatherhood of God, concerning which all that is needful to say here is that the prophet, true to the rest of Old Testament teaching on the subject, applies it only to God’s relation to the nation as a whole. In the Old Testament no one is called the son of God except Israel as a people, or some individual representative and head of Israel. And even of such the term was seldom employed. This was not because the Hebrew was without temptation to imagine his physical descent from the gods, for neighbouring nations indulged in such dreams for themselves and their heroes; nor because he was without appreciation of the intellectual kinship between the human and the Divine, for he knew that in the beginning God had said, "Let us make man in our own image." But the same feeling prevailed with him in regard to this idea, as we have seen prevailed in regard to the kindred idea of God as the husband of His people. The prophets were anxious to emphasise that it was a moral relation, -a moral relation, and one initiated from God’s side by certain historical acts of His free, selecting, redeeming, and adopting love. Israel was not God’s son till God had evidently called and redeemed him. Look at how our prophet uses the word Father, and to what he makes it equivalent. The first time it is equivalent to Redeemer: "Thou, O Lord, art our Father; our Redeemer from old is Thy name". { Isaiah 63:16 b} The second time it is illustrated by the work of the potter: "But now, O Lord, Thou art our Father; we are the clay, and Thou our potter; and we are all the work of Thy hand". { Isaiah 64:8 } Could it be made plainer in what sense the Bible defines this relation between God and man? It is not a physical, nor is it an intellectual relation. The assurance and the virtue of it do not come to men with their blood or with the birth of their intellect, but in the course of moral experience, with the sense that God claims them from sin and from the world for Himself; with the gift of a calling and a destiny; with the formation of character, the perfecting of obedience, the growth in His knowledge and His grace. And because it is a moral relation time is needed to realise it, and only after long patience and effort may it be unhesitatingly claimed. And that is why Israel was so long in claiming it, and why the clearest, most undoubting cries to God the Father, which rise from the Greek in the earliest period of his history, reach our ears from Jewish lips only near the end of their long progress, only (as we see from our prayer) in a time of trial and affliction. We have a New Testament echo of this Old Testament belief in the Fatherhood of God, as a moral and not a national relation, in Paul’s writings, who in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians { 2 Corinthians 6:17-18 } urges thus: "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." On these grounds, then, -that God in His great love had already adventured Himself with this whole people, and already by historical acts of election and redemption proved Himself the Father of the nation as a whole, -does our prophet plead with Him to save them all again. The answer to this pleading he gets in chapter 65. II. GOD’S ANSWER TO THE PROPHET’S INTERCESSION (Chapter 65) God’s answer to His prophet’s intercession is twofold. First, He says that He has already all this time been trying them with love, meeting them with salvation; but they have not turned to Him. The prophet has asked, "Where is Thy zeal? the yearning of Thy bowels and Thy compassions are restrained towards me. Thou hast hid Thy face far from us. Wilt Thou refrain Thyself for these things, O Jehovah? Wilt Thou hold Thy peace and afflict us very sore?" And now, "in the beginning of chapter 65, Jehovah answers, not with that confusion of tenses and irrelevancy of words with which the English version makes Him speak; but suitably, relevantly, and convincingly." "I have been to be inquired of those who asked not for Me. I have been to be found of them that sought Me not. I have been saying, I am here, I am here, to a nation that did not call on My name. I have stretched out My hands all the day to a people turning away, who walk in a way that is not good, after their own thoughts; a people that have been provoking Me to My face continually,"-and then He details their idolatry. This, then, is the answer of the Lord to the prophet’s appeal. "In this I have not all power. It is wrong to talk of Me as the potter and of man as the clay, as if all the active share in salvation lay with Me. Man is free, - free to withhold himself from My urgent affection; free to turn from My outstretched hands; free to choose before Me the abomination of idolatry. And this the mass of Israel have done, clinging, fanatical and self-satisfied, to their unclean and morbid imaginations of the Divine, all the time that My great prophecy by you has been appealing to them." This is a sufficient answer to the prophet’s prayer. Love is not omnipotent; if men disregard so open an appeal of the Love of God, they are hopeless; nothing else can save them. The sin against such love is like the sin against the Holy Ghost, of which our Lord speaks so hopelessly. Even God cannot help the despisers and abusers of Grace. The rest of God’s answer to His prophet’s intercession emphasises that the nation shall be saved for the sake of a faithful remnant in it ( Isaiah 65:8-10 ). But the idolaters shall perish ( Isaiah 65:11-12 ). They cannot possibly expect the same fare, the same experience, the same fate, as God’s faithful servants ( Isaiah 65:13-15 ). But those who are true and faithful Israelites, surviving and experiencing the promised salvation, shall find that God is true, and shall acknowledge Him as "the God of Amen, because the former troubles are forgotten" (those felt so keenly in the prophet’s prayer in chapter 64) "and because they are hid from Mine eyes." The rest of the answer describes a state of serenity and happiness wherein there shall be no premature death, nor loss of property, nor vain labour, nor miscarriage, nor disappointment of prayer nor delay in its answer, nor strife between man and the beasts, nor any hurt or harm in Jehovah’s Holy Mountain. Truly a prospect worthy of being named as the prophet names it, "a new heaven and a new earth!" Chapter 65 is thus closely connected, both by circumstance and logic, with the long prayer which precedes it. The tendency of recent criticism has been to deny this connection, especially on the line of circumstance. Chapter 65 does not, it is argued, reflect the Babylonish captivity as Isaiah 63:7 through Isaiah 64:1-12 so clearly does; but, on the contrary, "while some passages presuppose the Exile as past, others refer to circumstances characteristic of Jewish life in Canaan." But this view is only possible through straining some features of the chapter adaptable either to Palestine or Babylon, and overlooking others which are obviously Babylonian. "Sacrificing in gardens and burning incense on tiles" were practices pursued in Jerusalem before the Exile, but the latter was introduced there from Babylon, and the former was universal in heathendom. The practices in Isaiah 65:5 are never attributed to the people before the Exile, were all possible in Babylonia, and some we know to have been actual there. The other charge of idolatry in Isaiah 65:11 "suits Babylonia," Cheyne admits, "as well as (probably) Palestine." But what seems decisive for the exilic origin of chapter 65 is that the possession of Judah and Zion by the seed of Jacob is still implied as future ( Isaiah 65:9 ). Moreover the holy land is alluded to by the name common among the exiles in flat Mesopotamia, My mountains, and in contrast with the idolatry of which the present generation is guilty the idolatry of their fathers is characterised as having been "upon the mountains and upon the hills," and again the people is charged with "forgetting My holy mountain," a phrase reminiscent of Psalm 137:4 , and more appropriate to a time of exile, than when the people were gathered about Zion. All these resemblances in circumstances corroborate the strong logical connection which we have found between chapter 64 and chapter 65, and leave us no reason for taking the latter away from the main author of "Second Isaiah," though he may have worked up into it recollections and remains of an older time. III. THE LAST JUDGMENT (Chapter 66) Whether with the final chapter of our prophecy we at last get footing in the Holy Land is doubtful. It was said that, "in Isaiah 66:1-4 the Temple is still unbuilt, but the building would seem to be already begun." This latter clause should be modified to, "the building would seem to be in immediate prospect." The rest of the chapter, Isaiah 66:6-24 , has features that speak more definitely for the period after the Return; but even they are not conclusive, and their effect is counterbalanced by some other verses. Isaiah 66:6 may imply that the Temple is rebuilt, and Isaiah 66:20 that the sacrifices are resumed; but, on the other hand, these verses may be, like parts of chapter 60, statements of the prophet’s vivid vision of the future. Isaiah 66:7-8 seem to describe a repeopling of Jerusalem that has already taken place; but Isaiah 66:9 says, that while the "bringing to the birth" has already happened, which is, as we must suppose, the deliverance from Babylon, -or is it the actual arrival at Jerusalem?-the "bringing forth from the womb," that is, the complete restoration of the people, has still to take place. Isaiah 66:13 is certainly addressed to those who are not yet in Jerusalem. These few points reveal how difficult, nay, how impossible, it is to decide the question of date, as between the days immediately before the Return and the days immediately after. To the present expositor the balance of evidence seems to be with the later date. But the difference is very small. We are at least sure-and it is really all that we require to know-that the rebuilding of Jerusalem is very near, nearer than it has been felt in any previous chapter. The Temple is, so to speak, within sight, and the prophet is able to talk of the regular round of sacrifices and sacred festivals almost as if they had been resumed. To the people, then, either in the near prospect of Return, or immediately after some of them had arrived in Jerusalem, the prophet addresses a number of oracles, in which he pursues the division that chapter 65 had emphasised between the two parties in Israel. These oracles are so, intricate that we are compelled to take up the chapter verse by verse. The first of them begins by correcting certain false feelings in Israel, excited by former promises of the rebuilding and the glory of the Temple. "Thus saith Jehovah, The heavens are My throne, and earth is My footstool: what is this for a house that ye will build (or, are building) Me, and what is this for a place for My rest? Yea, all these things" (that is, all the visible works of God in heaven and earth) "My hand hath made, and so came to pass all these things, saith Jehovah. But unto this will I look, unto the humble and contrite spirit, and that trembleth at My word." These verses do not run counter to, or even go beyond, anything that our prophet has already said. They do not condemn the building of the Temple: this was not possible for a prophecy which contains chapter 60. They condemn only the kind of temple which those whom they address had in view, -a shrine to which the presence of Jehovah was limited, and on the raising and maintenance of which the religion and righteousness of the people should depend. While the former Temple was standing, the mass of the people had thus misconceived it, imagining that it was enough for national religion to have such a structure standing and honoured in their midst. And now, before it is built again, the exiles are cherishing about it the same formal and materialistic thoughts. Therefore the prophet rebukes them, as his predecessors had rebuked their fathers, and reminds them of a truth he has already uttered, that though the Temple is raised, according to God’s own promise and direction, it wilt not be to its structure, as they conceive of it, that He will have respect, but to the existence among them of humble and sincere personal piety. The Temple is to be raised: "the place of His feet God will make glorious," and men shall gather round it from the whole earth, for instruction, for comfort, and for rejoicing. But. let them not think it to be indispensable either to God or to man, -not to God, who has heaven for His throne and earth for His footstool; nor to man, for God looks direct to man, if only man be humble, penitent, and sensitive to His word. These verses, then, do not go beyond the Old Testament limit; they leave the Temple standing, but they say so much about God’s other sanctuary man, that when His use for the Temple shall be past, His Servant Stephen { Acts 7:49 } shall be able to employ these words to prove why it should disappear. The next verse is extremely difficult. Here it is literally: "A slaughterer of the ox, a slayer of a man; a sacrificer of the lamb, a breaker of a dog’s neck; an offerer of meat-offering, swine’s blood; the maker of a memorial offering of incense, one that blesseth an idol, or vanity." Four legal sacrificial acts are here coupled with four unlawful sacrifices to idols. Does this mean that in the eye of God, impatient even of the ritual He has consecrated, when performed by men who do not tremble at His word, each of these lawful sacrifices is as worthless and odious as the idolatrous practice associated with it, -the slaughter of the ox as the offering of a human sacrifice, and so forth? Or does the verse mean that there are persons in Israel who combine, like the Corinthians blamed by Paul, { 1 Corinthians 10:1-33 } both the true and the idolatrous ritual, both the table of the Lord and the table of devils? Our answer will depend on whether we take the four parallels with Isaiah 66:2 , which precedes them, or with the rest of Isaiah 66:3 , to which they belong, and Isaiah 66:4 . If we take them with Isaiah 66:2 , then we must adopt the first, the alternative meaning; if with Isaiah 66:4 , then the second of these meanings is the right one. Now there is no grammatical connection, nor any transparent logical one, between Isaiah 66:2 and Isaiah 66:3 , but there is a grammatical connection with the rest of Isaiah 66:3 . Immediately after the pairs of lawful and unlawful sacrificial acts, Isaiah 66:3 continues, "yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations." That surely signifies that the unlawful sacrifices in Isaiah 66:3 are things already committed and delighted in, and the meaning of putting them in parallel to the lawful sacrifices of Jehovah’s religion is either that Israelites have committed them instead of the lawful sacrifices, or along with these. In this case, Isaiah 66:3-4 form a separate discourse by themselves, with no relation to the equally distinct oracle in Isaiah 66:1 and Isaiah 66:2 . The subject of Isaiah 66:3-4 is, therefore, the idolatrous Israelites. They are delivered unto Satan, their choice; they shall have no part in the coming Salvation: In Isaiah 66:5 the faithful in Israel, who have obeyed God’s word by the prophet, are comforted under the mocking of their brethren, who shall certainly be put to shame. Already the prophet hears the preparation of the judgment against them ( Isaiah 66:6 ). It comes forth from the city where they had mockingly cried for God’s glory to appear. The mocked city avenges itself on them. "Hark, a roar from the City! Hark, from the Temple! Hark, Jehovah accomplishing vengeance on His enemies!" A new section begins with Isaiah 66:7 , and celebrates to Isaiah 66:9 the sudden re-population of the City by her children, either as already a fact, or, more probably, as a near certainty. Then comes a call to the children, restored, or about to be restored, to congratulate their mother and "to enjoy her. The prophet rewakens the figure, that is ever nearest his heart, of motherhood, -children suckled, borne, and cradled in the lap of their mother fill all his view; nay, finer still, the grown man coming back with wounds and weariness upon him to be comforted of his mother." As a man whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. And ye shall see, and rejoice shall your heart, and your bones shall flourish like the tender grass." But this great light shines not to flood all Israel in One, but to cleave the nation in two, like a sword of judgment. "The hand of Jehovah shall be known towards His servants, but He will have indignation against His enemies" (enemies, that is, within Israel. Then comes the fiery judgment) "For by fire will Jehovah plead, and by His sword with, all flesh; and the slain of Jehovah shall be many. Why there should be slain of Jehovah within Israel is then explained. Within Israel there are idolaters: "they that consecrate themselves and practise purification for the gardens, after one in the middle; eaters of swine’s flesh, and the Abomination, and the Mouse. They shall come to an end together, saith Jehovah, for I" (know, or will punish,) "their works and their thoughts." In this eighteenth verse the punctuation is uncertain, and probably the text is corrupt. The first part of the verse should evidently go, as above, with Isaiah 66:17 . Then begins a new subject. "It is coming to gather all the nations and the tongues, and they shall come and shall see My glory; and I will set among them a sign" (a marvellous and mighty act, probably of judgment, for he immediately speaks of their survivors) "and I will send the escaped of them to the nations Tarshish, and Lud, drawers of the bow, to Tubal and Javan" (that is, to far Spain, and the distances of Africa, towards the Black Sea and to "Greece, a full round of the compass) the isles far off that have not heard report of Me, nor have seen My glory; and they shall recount My glory among the nations. And they shall bring all your brethren from among all the nations an offering to Jehovah, on horses and in chariots and in litters, and on mules and on dromedaries, up on the Mount of My Holiness, Jerusalem, saith Jehovah, just as when the childr

Who is this that cometh from Edom? Isaiah 63:1-6 Jehovah's triumph over His people's foes Prof. S. R. Driver, D. . D. A passage of unique and sublime dramatic power. The impotence of Israel's enemies to retard or interfere with their deliverance has been insisted on before ( Isaiah 41:15 f., 49:25, 26, 51:23, 54:17); and it is here developed under a novel and striking figure. The historical fact upon which the representation rests is the long-standing and implacable enmity subsisting between Israel and Edom. The scene depicted is, of course, no event of actual history; it is symbolical; an ideal humiliation of nations, marshalled upon the territory of Israel's inveterate foe, is the form under which the thought of Israel's triumph is here expressed. The prophet sees in imagination a figure, as of a conqueror, his garments crimsoned with" blood, advancing proudly, in the distance from the direction of Edom, and asks, "Who is this that cometh?" etc. In reply, he hears from afar the words, "I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save," i.e. I who have announced ( Isaiah 45:19 ) a just and righteous purpose of deliverance, and am able to give "it effect. The answer is not yet sufficiently explicit, so he repeats the question in a more direct form, "Wherefore art Thou red in Thine apparel?' etc. (vers. 2, 3). Not Edom only, then, but other nations also have been trodden down and subdued (vers. 4-6). In the hour when the contest Israel contra mundum was to be decided, no human agent, willingly or consciously, came forward to assist; nevertheless, God's purposes were not frustrated: Israel's opponents were humbled and defeated; but human means, in so far as use was made of them, were the unconscious instruments of Providence. And thus the blood-stained colour of the Victor's garments is explained: it is a token of Jehovah's triumph over His people's foes, primarily, indeed, over those foes who would impede the release of the Jews from Babylon, or molest them when settled again in Palestine, but by implication also, over other foes who might rise up in the future to assail the people of God. ( Prof. S. R. Driver, D. . D. ) The Saviour -- God of Israel Prof. J. Skinner, D. D. The image presented is one of the most impressive and awe-inspiring in the Old Testament, and it is difficult to say which is most to be admired, the dramatic vividness of the vision, or the reticence which conceals the actual work of slaughter and concentrates the attention on the Divine Hero as He emerges victorious from the conflict. ( Prof. J. Skinner, D. D. ) Who is the Hero? Prof. J. Skinner, D. D. It was a serious misapprehension of the spirit of the prophecy which led many of the Fathers to apply it to the passion and death of Christ. Although certain phrases, detached from their context, may suggest that interpretation to a Christian reader, there can be no doubt that the scene depicted is a "drama of Divine vengeance" (G. A. Smith), into which the idea of propitiation does not enter. The solitary Figure who speaks in vers. 3-6 is not the servant of the Lord, or the Messiah, but Jehovah Himself (comp. the parallel, Isaiah 59:16 ); the blood which reddens His garments is expressly said to be that of His enemies; and the "winepress" is no emblem of the spiritual sufferings endured by our Lord, but of the "fierceness and wrath of Almighty God' ( Revelation 19:15 ) towards the adversaries of His Kingdom. While it is true that the judgment is the prelude to the redemption of Israel, the passage before us exhibits only the judicial aspect of the Divine dealings, and it is not permissible to soften the terrors of the picture by introducing soteriological conceptions which lie beyond its scope. ( Prof. J. Skinner, D. D. ) The Conqueror from Edom Bp. Phillips Brooks. What does it mean — the prophetic Genius waiting, watching, and questioning; the mighty stranger coming fresh from victorious battle, with the robe red as if with the stain of grapes, coming up from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? Edom, remember, was the country where the Israelites' most inveterate enemies lived. No other nation pressed on them so constantly or gave them such continual trouble as the Edomites. And Bozrah was the capital city of Edom, the centre of its power. When the conqueror comes from Edom, then, and finds Israel anxious and eager upon the mountain, and shows her his stained robe in sign of the struggle which he has gone through, and then tells her that the victory is complete, that because he saw that she had no defender he has undertaken her defence and trodden Edom under foot for her, we can -,understand something of the power and comfort of such a poetic vision to the Hebrew's heart. There may have been some special event which it commemorated. Some special danger may have threatened on the side of the tumultuous Edomites, and some special unexpected deliverer may have appeared who saved the country, and was honoured by this song of praise. But every such special deliverance to the deep religious and patriotic feeling of the Jew had a much wider meaning. Every partial mercy to his nation always pointed to the one great mercy which was to embrace all others, to the coming of the Messiah, whose advent was to be the source of every good, and the cure of every evil. And so these words of Isaiah mount to a higher strain than any that could have greeted an Israelite warrior who aright have made a successful incursion into Edomite soil. The prophet is singing of the victorious Messiah. This Hebrew Messiah has come, and is more than the Hebrew Messiah: He is the Christian's Christ, He is our Saviour. ( Bp. Phillips Brooks. ) Christ's struggle and triumph Bp. Phillips Brooks. Very often now this sounds strange and incomprehensible; this absorption of every struggle between the good and the evil that is going on in the world into the one great struggle of the life and death of Jesus Christ; but it follows necessarily from any such full idea as we Christians hold of what Jesus Christ is and of what brought Him to this world. If He be really the Son of God, bringing in an utterly new way the power of God to bear on human life; if He be the natural-Creator-King of humanity, come for the salvation of humanity; then it would seem to follow that the work of salvation must be His, and His alone: and if we see the process of salvation, the struggle of the good against the evil, going on all over the world, we shall be ready still to feel that it is all under His auspices and guidance; that the effort of any benighted soul in any darkest heathen land to get away from its sins, and cast itself upon an assured mercy of its God, is part of His great work, is to the full intelligent faith of the well-taught Christian believer just what the struggle of a blind plant underground to reach the surface is to the free aspiration of the oak-tree, which in the full glory of the sunlight reaches out its eager branches toward the glorious sun — a result of the same power, and a contribution to the same victorious success. All forces strive after simplicity and unity. Operations in nature, in mechanics, in chemistry, which men have long treated as going on under a variety of powers, are gradually showing themselves to be the fruits of one great mightier power, which in many various forms of application is able to produce them all. This is the most beautiful development of our modern science. The Christian belief in Christ holds the same thing of the spiritual world, and unites all partial victories everywhere into one great victory which is the triumph of its Lord. On no other ground can Christianity stand with its exclusive claims, and Christianity is in its very nature exclusive. In the susceptibility of all men to the same influences of the highest sort, there comes out the only valuable proof of the unity of the human race, I think. Demonstrate what you may about the diversity of origin or structure of humanity, so long as the soul capable of the great human struggle and the great human helps is in every man, the human race is one, On the other hand, demonstrate as perfectly as you will the identity of origin and structure of all humanity, yet if you find men so spiritually different in two hemispheres that the same largest obligations do not impress and the same largest loves do not soften them, what does your unity of the human race amount to? Here, it seems to me, Christ in His broad appeal to all men of all races, is the true assorter of the only valuable human unity. If this be so, then wherever there is good at work in the world, we Christians may see the progress of the struggle, and rejoice already in the victory of Christ. ( Bp. Phillips Brooks. ) The method of Christ's salvation Bp. Phillips Brooks. Let us go on and look, as far as we may, into the method of this salvation; first, for the world at large, and then for the single soul. And in both let us follow the story of the old Jewish vision. Who is this that cometh from Edom?" Sin hangs on the borders of goodness everywhere, as just across the narrow Jordan valley Edom always lay threateningly upon the skirts of Palestine. How terribly constant it was! How it kept the people on a strain all the while! The moment that a Jew stepped across the border, the Edomites were on him. The moment a flock or beast of his wandered too far, the enemy had seized him. If in the carelessness of a festival the Israelites left the border unguarded, the hated Edomites found it out and came swooping down just when the mirth ran highest and the sentinels were least careful. If a Jew's field of wheat was specially rich, the Edomite saw the green signal from his hilltop, and in the morning the field was bare. There was no rest, no safety. They had met the chosen people on their way into the promised land, and tried to keep them out; and now that they were safely in, there they always hovered, wild, implacable, and watchful. There could be no terms of compromise with them. They never slept. They saw the weak point in a moment; they struck it quick as lightning strikes. The constant dread, the nightmare, of Jewish history is this Edom lying there upon the border, like a lion crouched to spring. There cannot be one great fight, or one great war, and then the thing done for ever. It is an endless fight with an undying enemy! Edom upon the borders of Judah! 1. We open any page of human history and what do we see? There is a higher life in man. Imperfect, full of mixture, just like that mottled history of Hebrewdom; yet still it is in human history what Judea was in the old world — the spiritual, the upward, the religious element; something that believes in God and struggles after Him. Not a page can you open but its mark is there. "Sometimes it is an aspiration after civilization, sometimes it is a doctrinal movement, sometimes it is a mystical piety that is developed; sometimes it is social; sometimes it is ascetic and purely individual; sometimes it is a Socrates, sometimes it is a St. Francis, sometimes it is a Luther, sometimes it is a Florence Nightingale. It is there in some shape always: this good among the evil, this power of God among the forces of men, this Judah in the midst of Asia. But always right on its border lies the hostile Edom, watchful, indefatigable, inexorable as the redoubtable old foe of the Jews. If progress falters a moment, the whole mass of obstructive ignorance is rolled upon it. If faith leaves a loophole undefended, the quick eye of Atheism sees it from its watch-tower and hurls its quick strength there, If goodness goes to sleep upon its arms, sleepless wickedness is across the valley, and the fields which it has taken months of toil to sow and ripen are swept off in a night. Is not this the impression of the world, of human life, that you get, whether you open the history of any century or unfold your morning newspaper? The record of a struggling charity is crowded by the story of the prison and the court. The world waits at the church door to catch the worshipper as he comes out. The good work of one century relaxes a moment for a breathing spell, and the next century comes in with its licentiousness or its superstition. Always it is the higher life pressed, watched, haunted by the lower: always it is Judah with Edom at its gates. No one great battle comes to settle it for ever: it is an endless fight with an undying enemy. 2. How is it in these little worlds, which we are carrying about? You have your good, your Spirituality, your better life; something that bears witness of God. How evil crowds you! You cannot fight it out at once and have it done. You go on quietly for days, and think the enemy is dead. Just when you are safest, there he is again, more alive than ever. We live a spiritual life like the life that our fathers used to live here in New England, who always took their guns to church with them and smoothed down the graves of their beloved dead in the churchyard that the hostile and watchful Indians might not know how weak they were. This is the great discouraging burden of our experience of sin. "We look and there is none to help. We wonder that there is none to uphold." No power of salvation comes out of the good half of the heart to conquer and to kill the bad. We grow not to expect to see the bad half conquered. Every morning we lift up our eyes, and there are the low, black hill-tops across the narrow valley, with the black tents upon their sides, where Edom lies in wait. Who shall deliver us from the bad world and our bad selves? What then? It is time for the sunrise when the night gets as dark as this. It is time for the Saviour when the world and the soul have learnt their helplessness and sin. "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in His apparel, travelling in the greatness of His strength?" The whole work of the Saviour has relation to and issues from the fact of sin. If there had been no sin there would have been no Saviour. He comes from the right direction, and He has an attractive majesty of movement as He first appears. This, as to the watcher on the hill-tops of Judea, so to the soul that longs for some solution of the spiritual problem, some release from the spiritual bondage, is the first aspect of the approaching Christ. He comes from the right way, and He seems strong. ( Bp. Phillips Brooks. ) The righteous Saviour Bp. Phillips Brooks. Let us look at what He says to His anxious questioner; what account of Himself He gives; what He has done to Edom; and especially what mean these blood-stains on His robes. 1. We ask Him, "Who is this?" and He replies, "I that come in righteousness, mighty to save." That reassures us, and is good at the very outset. The Saviour comes in the strength of righteousness. Righteousness is at the bottom of all things. Any reform or salvation of which the power is righteousness must go down to the very root of the trouble; must extenuate and cover over nothing; must expose and convict completely, in order that it may completely heal. And this is the power of the salvation of Christ. Edom must be destroyed, not parleyed with; sin must be beaten down, not conciliated; good must thrive by the defeat, and not merely by the tolerance of evil. 2. The questioner wonders, as the Saviour comes nearer, at the strange signs of battle and agony upon His robes. "Wherefore art Thou red in Thine apparel, and Thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine-fat?" And the answer is, "I have trodden the winepress:" "I will tread them in Mine anger," etc. It is no holiday monarch coming with a bloodless triumph. It has been no pageant of a day, this strife with sin. The robes have trailed in the blood. The sword is dented with conflict. The power of God has struggled with the enemy and subdued him only in the agony of strife. What pain may mean to the Infinite and Divine, what difficulty may mean to Omnipotence, I cannot tell. Only I know that all that they could mean they meant here. This symbol of the blood bears this great truth, which has been the power of salvation to millions of hearts, and which must make this Conqueror the Saviour of your heart too, the truth that only in self-sacrifice and suffering could even God conquer sin. Sin is never so dreadful as when we see the Saviour with that blood upon His garments. And the Saviour Himself, surely He is never so dear, never wins so utter and so tender a love, as when we see what it has cost Him to save us. Out of that love born of His suffering comes the new impulse after a holy life; and so when we stand at last purified by the power of grateful obedience, it shall be said of us, binding our holiness and escape from our sin close to our Lord's struggle with sin for us, that we have "washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." 3. But He says something more. Not merely He has conquered completely and conquered in suffering: He has conquered alone. He brings out victory in His open hand. From His hand we take it by the power of prayer, and to Him alone we render thanks here and for ever. 4. Yet once more. What was the fruit of this victory over Edom which the Seer of Israel discovered from his mountain-top? It set Israel free from continual harassing and fear, and gave her a chance to develop along the way that God had marked out for her. Freedom! That is the word. It built no cities; it sowed no fields; it only broke off the burden of that hostile presence and bade the chosen nation go free into its destiny. And so what is the fruit of the salvation that the Divine Saviour brings to the souls of men? It does not finish them at once; it does not fill and stock their lives with heavenly richness in a moment. But it does just this. It sets them free; it gives them a new chance. 5. And notice that this Conqueror who comes, comes strong "travelling in the greatness of His strength." He has not left His might behind Him in the struggle. He is all ready, with the same strength with which He conquered, to enter in and rule and educate the nation He has saved. And so the Saviour has not done all when He has forgiven you. By the same strength of love and patience which saved you upon Calvary, He will come in, if you will let Him, and train your saved life into perfectness of grace and glory. ( Bp. Phillips Brooks. ) Mighty to save F. W. Brown. I. THE NATURE OF THE CONFLICT CHRIST WAGED IN OUR WORLD AMONG MEN. It was — 1. Voluntary. Christ came joyfully, willingly, and self-forgetfully. 2. Sanguinary. The victory was not achieved without a severe struggle. 3. Substitutionary. The hero was travelling in his strength, and had wrought deliverance from the foe, had saved those for whom he had gone forth to the fray. So our Redeemer came to conquer sin and death, not for Himself, but for us. II. THE COMPLETENESS OF THE CONQUEST CHRIST ACHIEVED IN THE CONFLICT. The victor from Edom was more than a conqueror. 1. He survived the fight. Many a warrior has won a victory, but has lost his life in winning it. Jesus laid down His life to conquer death, but He took it up again; "and behold He is alive for evermore." 2. lie subdued the foe. The hero from Edom was travelling peacefully, for the enemy had been completely vanquished, the conquest finally won of lords." III. THE BRIGHTNESS OF THE CROWN CHRIST SECURED BY HIS GREAT CONQUEST. The conqueror from Edom appeared clothed in glorious apparel and in great strength; there was a halo of glory around his head. In this aspect we get a picture of our triumphant Lord. He assumed the vestment of our poor humanity, and was "as a root out of a dry ground;" yet He was clothed with the beautiful garments of grace and righteousness, of spotless purity. His crown .of glory consisted in the following facts — 1. That justice was satisfied. 2. That pardon was procured. The full price of redemption was paid. 3. That heaven was opened. ( F. W. Brown. ) The second advent H. Melvill, B. D. I. The first thing is to determine the just answer to the question, "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? in other words, we have to ascertain who IS THE WARRIOR DELINEATED IN THIS PROPHECY. 1. The only endeavour to refer this prediction to another than Christ, appears to be that which would assign as its subject Judas Maccabeus, because this great Jewish captain who did so valiantly for the Jews in the days of Antiochus, overcame the Idumeans in battle; and if every circumstance favoured that interpretation (and we might, perhaps, suppose that this illustrious deliverer, in common with Moses, and Joshua, and other saviours of Israel, may be regarded as a type of the Messiah), still we could only plead for the accommodation, not for the completion of the prophecy. However splendid the achievements of Judas Maccabeus, there can be no sense, commensurate with the expression, in which the chieftain could describe himself as "speaking in righteousness," and assert that the year of his redeemed was come, or affirm that his own arm had brought salvation: so that were it allowed that the prediction had a primary fulfilment in Judas Maccabeus, we should still have to search for another accomplishment. It seems, however, satisfactorily established that Idumea or Edom at the prophet's time was a different country from that which Judas conquered. This circumstance excludes Judas Maccabeus from all share in the prophecy before us; and there remains none but the Redeemer of men in whom we can look for its accomplishment. 2. When it is admitted that the prophecy delineates Christ, we have to determine whether it be to an action already achieved or yet to be performed by the Saviour, that so sublime a description refers. It can only have been through inattention or oversight that any have supposed the prediction to relate to the death and passion of the Mediator. You observe that though the Redeemer is introduced as stained with blood, it is with the blood of His enemies, not with His own. There is a little obscurity in the answer arising from our translator having used the future tense instead of the past; and, according to Bishop Lowth, it should be, "I trod them in anger, and trampled them in indignation, and their life blood was sprinkled upon My garments, and I have stained all My apparel." It was not, therefore, the winepress which He trod in His agony at the crucifixion, whence He brought these dyed garments; He must have been engaged in shedding the blood of others rather than pouring forth His own, ere He breaks forth on the seer's vision travelling in the greatness of His strength. The only circumstance associated with the first advent of Christ to which the prophecy can be fairly thought to refer, is the destruction of Jerusalem at that terrible visitation in which the Redeemer came down in vengeance, and dealt with His enemies with the strongest retribution. Yet, whatever there might have been in the desolations of Judea answering to the fearful expressions which Christ applies to this act, it certainly was not from Edom and Bozrah that He came, when returning from the overthrow of Jerusalem. Of course it was not from the literal Edom, and the literal Bozrah, but neither was it from the figurative. We believe that Edom and Bozrah are here used to denote nations that have been opposed to Christ and His people, and never was there a fiercer opposition than that of the Jews ere their city was destroyed; still it is quite at variance with the rules of Scripture metaphor, that the posterity of Jacob should be described by terms which belong rightly to the posterity of Esau. We may add that Christ's description of vengeance taken is immediately followed by thankful acknowledgments of great good to the house of Israel. If the prophecy have reference to the destruction of Jerusalem, how comes it to be instantly succeeded by a hymn of praise for God's mercy to the Jews? On these various accounts we do not hesitate to assert that the prediction finds no fulfilment in the events of past days; that the future must be charged with its accomplishment, and that the fearful form on which the prophet looked, the form of a warrior, fresh from the victory, must be that of Christ appearing, as He shall appear, at the close of this dispensation, when He has swept a clear scene for setting up His kingdom, and purged the earth from the pollutions of crime. And to those who are familiar with the prophecies which describe the last times, it will immediately suggest itself, that the sudden transition from the assertion of the destruction of antichristian powers, to the offering up of the thanksgiving of the Jews, is in admirable keeping with the whole tenor of prophecy. It seems clearly the import of yet unfulfilled predictions of Scripture, that the restoration of the Jews to their own laud, that great event on which hangs the conversion of the nations, shall not be accomplished without the opposition and overthrow of the confederated powers of antichrist. If, therefore, we consider the final destruction of the antichristian powers as the slaughter of Idumea, from which Christ is returning, it is quite natural that the praises of the house of Israel should immediately succeed the account of the overthrow. II. Our business is to show THE JUSTICE OF THE INTERPRETATION which would associate the prophecy with the Saviour's second advent. 1. We shall examine what Scripture makes known with regard to the second advent. 2. We shall endeavour to establish the thorough agreement between all we are thus taught, and the prophecy of ore" text.(1) This coming is represented as accompanied by terrific judgements. It appears from the Book of Revelation that immediately before the millennium, the scene that is to be introduced by the coming of Christ, there will be a gathering of the kings of the earth to battle for the great day of God Almighty. This is the confederacy of antichristian powers. We not only find that when Christ appears the second time it will be to take vengeance on His enemies, but we seem to be furnished with a thorough answer to the question, "Who is this that cometh from Edom. etc.(2) The only point which seems to need illustration, ere we proceed to fix the meaning of the text, is the use of the terms Edom and Bozrah, to denote the confederated powers of antichrist. It is common in Scripture to take the name belonging to some great foe, and to give it to others whose wickedness is the only connection with the parties so called ( e.g. Isaiah 1:10 ). The antichristian power which was allowed for years to persecute and to harass the Church, and is at last to be thrown down with violence, is expressly denominated "Babylon." In like manner, names such as Edom and Moab, belonging originally to the declared foes of God and His people, are used for others who imitate these foes in their enmity. If you examine the predictions which relate to these nations you will find prophecy, according to the character which it usually presents, passing on from the past to what we must believe yet to come; or, rather, describing the fall of those that first bore the name in language inappropriate, unless designed to apply to others who by their wickedness should deserve the same punishment. So far as Edom and Bozrah are concerned, the expressions are evidently too strong to refer to those places literally; and it is impossible to read them and not see that they relate to a yet future judgment.(3) As to the text, we must ascertain the period of the judgment it announces. No sooner has Isaiah asserted that the visited land is given up to Christ, as the avenger, than he breaks out into the exclamation, "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose;" and proceeds with a glowing account of the Mediator's kingdom. Hence it will appear evident that the judgments described are those which shall introduce the millennium, the thirty-fifth chapter having reference to this scene of blessedness; and, therefore, the thirty-fourth chapter delivering, as it does, a fearful visitation connected with subsequent happiness, must be expected to coincide with other predictions respecting Christ's second coming. But why are we anxious to prove that the thirty-fourth chapter of Isaiah predicts the judgment that attends the Redeemer's advent? Simply because, if this be proved, we shall also prove that by the names Edom and Bozrah are denoted those antichristian powers that shall be destroyed by the brightness of Christ's coming. In the fifth and sixth verses of the thirty-fourth chapter, it is on Idumea and Bozrah that the prophet fastens the calamity which forms the subject of his prophecy. Idumea and Bozrah denote the antichristian powers who shall be confederated when Christ shall appear. It may be contended that the prophecy was fulfilled in the destruction of the literal Edom. We know that Edom was laid waste by Nebuchadnezzar, but this event in no degree justifies so high-wrought a description. It cannot be without opposition and convulsions that Satan is driven from his usurped dominion. It is from Edom the warrior advances — the land in which dwelt the enemies of righteousness. We know this Mighty Being; we know the work with which He is busied. It is the Redeemer who was crucified in weakness; and who, after a display of marvellous forbearance, shall come forth to avenge His own elect, and destroy them that destroyed the earth. Therefore, we know what answer to give when the prophet demands, "Who is this that cometh from Edom?(4) We have still to consider the answer in the text, and show its appropriateness as proceeding from Christ at His second appearing. When the prophet asks the name of the being whom he beheld travelling in the greatness of His strength, the reply is, "I that speak in righteous" "This reply is not only characteristic of the Redeemer, but peculiarly appropriate, as the Redeemer returns from the slaughter of His enemies. His actions have just proved Him mighty to destroy, and His words announce Him "mighty to save," so that He is able to confound every foe, and uphold every friend. "Now it seems to us that in the reply given to the challenge of the prophet, there is a distinct assertion that He who comes with dyed garments from Bozrah maintains those principles of righteousness which cannot be maintained but by an infinite judge. I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. The time at which the answer is made can only be that of Christ's second appearing. ( H. Melvill, B. D. ) Christ has achieved salvation T. De W. Talmage, D. D. We behold here a new revelation of a blessed and startling fact. People talk of Christ as though He were going to do something grand for us after a while. He has done it. You might as well talk of Washington as though he were going to achieve our national independence in 1950 as to speak of Christ as though He were going to achieve our salvation in the future. He did it in the year of our Lord 33, on the field of Bozrah, the Captain of our salvation fighting unto death for our emancipation. All we have to do is to accept that fact in our heart of hearts, and we are free for this world, and for the world to come. ( T. De W. Talmage, D. D. ) Christ's victory E. C. S. Gibson. M. A. I. TAKE THE WORDS OF THE VICTORY WON ON CALVARY, and how they bring home to us the greatness of our need and of our redemption! Nothing short of a Divine interposition could save us. There was an old rule of the poet's art which a heathen has left on record, which said that in the drama the intervention of a god was not to be made use of by the poet, except on an occasion worthy of it. And in the great drama of the world's redemption, wrought out in the presence of heaven and earth, God Himself may with all reverence be said to have acted upon this rule. God waited while human systems did what they could for the salvation of the world. God waited through the long ages while Edom — the power of the world — seemed to wax mightier and mightier. Each one of the centuries which rolled on before the Incarnation only added to the hopelessness and despair of humanity. System after system of philosophy was tried. Each in its turn promised much, but performed little; until at length a dull, blank despair seemed to be settling down upon a decaying and dying world. And then, at length, God Himself intervened. And the work which the Son of God undertook in His infinite pity for man was no holiday task, to be entered upon with a light heart. II. WE MAY TAKE THE VISION AS RECEIVING A FULFILMENT IN OUR OWN LIVES, whenever in the mer

63:1-6 The prophet, in vision, beholds the Messiah returning in triumph from the conquest of his enemies, of whom Edom was a type. Travelling, not as wearied by the combat, but, in the greatness of his strength, prepared to overcome every opposing power. Messiah declares that he had been treading the wine-press of the wrath of God, Re 14:19; 19:13, and by his own power, without any human help, he had crushed his obstinate opposers, for the day of vengeance was determined on, being the appointed season for rescuing his church. Once, he appeared on earth in apparent weakness, to pour out his precious blood as an atonement for our sins; but he will in due time appear in the greatness of his strength. The vintage ripens apace; the day of vengeance, fixed and determined on, approaches apace; let sinners seek to be reconciled to their righteous Judge, ere he brings down their strength to the earth. Does Christ say, I come quickly? let our hearts reply, Even so, come; let the year of the redeemed come. 63:7-14 The latter part of this chapter, and the whole of the next, seem to express the prayers of the Jews on their conversation. They acknowledge God's great mercies and favours to their nation. They confess their wickedness and hardness of heart; they entreat his forgiveness, and deplore the miserable condition under which they have so long suffered. The only-begotten Son of the Father became the Angel or Messenger of his love; thus he redeemed and bare them with tenderness. Yet they murmured, and resisted his Holy Spirit, despising and persecuting his prophets, rejecting and crucifying the promised Messiah. All our comforts and hopes spring from the loving-kindness of the Lord, and all our miseries and fears from our sins. But he is the Saviour, and when sinners seek after him, who in other ages glorified himself by saving and feeding his purchased flock, and leading them safely through dangers, and has given his Holy Spirit to prosper the labours of his ministers, there is good ground to hope they are discovering the way of peace. 63:15-19 They beseech him to look down on the abject condition of their once-favoured nation. Would it not be glorious to his name to remove the veil from their hearts, to return to the tribes of his inheritance? The Babylonish captivity, and the after-deliverance of the Jews, were shadows of the events here foretold. The Lord looks down upon us in tenderness and mercy. Spiritual judgments are more to be dreaded than any other calamities; and we should most carefully avoid those sins which justly provoke the Lord to leave men to themselves and to their deceiver. Our Redeemer from everlasting is thy name; thy people have always looked upon thee as the God to whom they might appeal. The Lord will hear the prayers of those who belong to him, and deliver them from those not called by his name.